Why the NHS is in crisis

The numbers waiting for hospital services have risen to a record high and with Christmas around the corner there are fears this could be the worst ever - even before winter had hit, many hospitals were running out of beds.

2022 has seen ambulances queuing for hours outside hospitals, waiting lists passed seven million people, and demoralised staff are leaving en masse.
NHS Nurses voted to strike for the first time in their history and will be joined by thousands of other colleagues when they do.

We look at the problems facing the NHS and reveal the true scale of the issues in UK healthcare.

Can the NHS get through what could be its toughest winter ever?

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[dub]

It's an old trick... 1) underfund a public service. 2) it ceases to work correctly 3) It's easy to justify privatizing it and all your mates get rich. The Tories love playing this game.

[fzrshiny]

"We send the EU £350 million a week. let's fund our NHS instead" - So why is the NHS not receiving £350 million extra every week?

[Deathwish]

when my dad collapsed after vomiting blood last september it took 3 and a half hours to get an ambulance. 3 days later we had to turn off his machines because theres nothing more the doctors could do. every day i wonder would he still be here if the ambulance hadent taken so long.

[williemacdonald]

Twelve years of Tory cuts.
There you go summed it up in five words.

[johnhobbes]

I'm a German A&E worker and I can tell you that we have massive problems, too. I often work 240 hours a month and it is a nightmare to find a bed for a patient fever or diarhea. (Normal beds are already pretty rare, but isolation rooms are really a problem) However, this is nowhere near the problems the NHS is facing. For example, the 18 minute target (Video minute 2:04) is almost the same in Germany (15 minute target) but it is the maximum amount of time an ambulance is allowed to need to get even into the rural areas. If this limit is breached, the person who is responsible for the logistics has to justufy the incident. Whe have a special part in our protocol for this reason. (This almost exclusively happens when there is either a mass incident or you have to get across the railway).
The additional cost to the care system from unnecessary harm must be huge. (not to mention the human tradegy)
I hope the british can surpass party politics in this area and fix the problems.

[ceefarbs]

Experienced this when they tried to discharge me after emergency surgery at 1am in the morning… I’d barely been to sleep post surgery, pregnant women were sleeping in recliners, and someone blacked out in the corridor and no one realised for ages… country is fucked, GGWP tories

[markedwards]

A friend of mine had a mild stroke 2 months ago.
A have basic first aid training, and it had been drummed into me that in the case of stroke victims, every second counts. I did what I was trained to do, and called an emergency ambulance. After repeatedly desperate phone calls, the ambulance arrived EIGHT HOURS LATER. They were, I was told, very busy that night.
Sadly, my friend failed to recover, and passed away a few days ago from what was described as an "unrelated heart condition".
I do not blame the paramedics, they can only perform according to the size of the workforce, and funding provided to the service.
Guess why paramedics are leaving in their droves?
This to me is not an argument amongst politicians, or an ideological issue. It is quite simply corporate manslaughter. If Sunak was a CEO, he would be looking at a lengthy prison sentence.

[TheRepublicOfYhonai]

Brexit is not an insignificant part of the problem, the sudden cutoff of skilled foreign staff was a huge blow to the NHS' ability to get its work done. If the government doesn't use massive and decisive investment, this great UK institution will simply die, along with many Brits who can't afford anything else.

[lincslegend]

My wife's a nurse so I know first hand what's going on and how hard all the staff work. It blows my mind that the NHS hasn't been funded or staffed properly to keep with demand and a growing/ageing population!
The staff should be paid and treated better to retain and encourage people to join the NHS.
More staff means less stress and workload on current staff, meaning fewer sick days and a more productive/happy workforce.
The torys are a disgrace and should be ashamed of all the years of underfunding and cuts.

[originalunoriginal]

It's obvious public services are immensely overwhelmed an overburdened.
The demand for number of patients in need of NHS service outweighs the number of NHS hospital staff.

[montygemma]

A real problem is that people can't get to see their GP's. People are turning up in A&E with chest infections, stomach problems, painful bad backs etc, all things that need urgently looking at but not really A&E issues. They can't get appointments so they go to the hospital, might have to wait ages but they will get sorted out.

[Johnridge]

My manager is a band 7. She got paid the other day to sell candles for a fundraiser while we were short staffed on the ward. Matron knew and did nothing. Too many box ticking, clipboard carrying morons. People on the wards are what is needed.

[lugano]

The Tories always underfund it seeing that they want to privatise as much of it as possible.
Thatcher did just that.
Then Labor, 1997-2010, restored to to a high level of functioning.
The Tories, since 2010 have gone back to decimating it. (And of course blaming everyone else for it.)

[teresaharris-travelbybooks]

We're on the verge of a crisis in the U.S. Corporations have no sense when it comes to running a hospital. Nurses and CMA's understaffed and overworked and underpaid. They're leaving the jobs in droves and the doctors that are coming out of medical school now, have no idea of how to do things without a nurse or CMA to direct them.

[luthen]

Not in the UK myself but I’ve heard stories of people calling an ambulance for really basic things like a child having a chest cold or feeling lightheaded. An ambulance is meant for EMERGENCIES where immediate stabilizing care is needed as part of a transition to hospital care.

People seem to use it as an at home GP visit! They ought to fine people for BS ambulance calls. That would cut way down on wait times for ambulances in an emergency. And bring some extra $ in for the NHS as well.

Also if you have 132, 000 open positions why aren’t they incentivizing people to go into medicine? Offer to pay a portion of their tuition if they graduate and work for the NHS for say 5 years or something. I bet there’s a lot of people out there who would take the government up on that.

[chalayan]

The main issue is the UK government is putting too much focus on stuff which isnt related to the UK such as funding Ukraine and the illegal immigrants. These million and billion of dollars could easily be used for the country healthcare system etc.

[ssss]

too many customers and not enough taxpayers.

[marvintpandroid]

Everyone of the people at the sharp end may end up quitting, there are other jobs around in the UK, lots of them.

I had the misfortune to have to need the NHS just over a year ago from a suspected stroke, I could see that it was not working as it should.

[emm_arr]

The Conservatives rarely get asked to expain the why of this.
There's always money to subsidise corporation tax being so low. I don't see why Rees-Mogg needs to get _riyercheur_.

[DeepMeditationMusic]

Much respect to the NHS personnel! I hope we all learn to appreciate the amazing jobs they do day in and day out.